Leadership Level 2: Permission or Relationship

Most of the times, this level is being skipped out. After getting the "position" as the leader, most of the aspiring starters jump straight through Level 3. They start to give out orders and commands, not being aware that they are dealing with humans (and not robots).

As a recap, we learned that in the First Level, your title or your position is the only influence you have. Furthermore, climbing in this level, the "relationship" level, you are trying to get people to work for you even if they are not obliged. 

Does it sound as if this only exists on a "perfect" or "ideal" system? Isn't it? How can you make someone work for you beyond his work schedule, that is, it's like working for charity? This might sound weird, but yes, if you excel in this level people naturally allow themselves to follow you, even if it might cause "some inconveniences" on their part.

John C. Maxwell gave an illustration from the story of Henry Ford (in Amitai Etzioni's book "Modern Organizations"):

He made a perfect car, the Model T, that ended the need for any other car. He was totally product-oriented. He wanted to fill the world with Model T cars. But when people started coming to him and saying, "Mr. Ford, we'd like a different color car," he remarked, "You can have any color you want as long as it's black." And that's when the decline started.

The "permission" level is where you work out your inter-relationship skills. You need to build solid and lasting foundation of relationship with your followers in order to sustain a long and effective kind of leadership.

As John C. Maxwell puts it in words:

"You can love people without leading them, but you cannot lead people without loving them."

To excel in the "relationship" level of leadership, most of the times, you would need to invest your time, your patience, and your finances - it is more of investing "yourself" for them. There would come a time when it seems you are not seeing the results yet, but still, be persistent on building up on this level. Remember, one of the most difficult tasks in constructing a skyscraper is laying out its foundations. But once the foundations are all set up, it is not impossible to erect a giant building, even if it is the mighty Burj Khalifa - the tallest man-made structure in the world!

If you aim to proceed to the next level, these are the qualities John Maxwell listed in his book "Developing the Leader Within You" that you must exhibit first, with excellence.

Leadership Level 2: PERMISSION or RELATIONSHIP

• Possess a genuine love for people.
• Make those who work with you more successful.
• See through other people's eyes.
• Love people more than procedures.
• Do "win-win" or don't do it.
• Include others in your journey.
• Deal wisely with difficult people.

Now, if you see yourself excelling in this level, you need to climb to the next level of leadership.

And we will be talking about that on the next post about Leadership.

© 2014 Erickson Ibana

Image can be found http://greatleadersserve.org/servant-leadership-works/

Second image can be found in John Maxwell's book "Developing the Leader Within You"

Leadership Level 1: Position or Rights

If you would be given the chance to choose who to follow among the two, who would that be. Would you choose to follow a boss or a leader?

This question might seem to be tricky to some. They would ask, "Wait, aren't these two, a boss and a leader, just the same?" Are they?

John C. Maxwell differentiated these two in his book "Developing the Leader Within You".

• The boss drives his workers; the leader coaches them.
• The boss depends on authority; the leader on good will.
• The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
• The boss says "I"; the leader, "we".
• The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
• The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how.
• The boss says, "Go"; the leader says, "Let's go!"

Clearly, the boss has not gotten into the next level of leadership, yet. He remained in the first level, the entry level of leadership, called "Position". This level is also named as the "Rights" stage.

In this level, your title or your position is the only influence you have. Your security is based on your title, and not on your talent. In contrast with the other levels of leadership which are gained by ability, this level is often gained by appointment.

The negative part if you remain in this position and not thrive into the next level is that people only follow you because of your stated authority, and will not do so beyond that. Oftentimes, they will just do what they are required to do, and nothing more than that. They are usually characterized by an attitude of low morale. As John Maxwell said,

"When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment."

I remember a supervisor I had before. He was stuck in this level, and as a typical employee sensing his positional insecurity, I did what I had to do as his subordinate, his slave - and I did that only because I was needed to. It felt like I was just dragging my feet to work.


A real leader, however, is the person whom others would gladly and confidently follow. His mere presence gives inspiration and enthusiasm to his fellow workers. They enjoy working with him, which in turn, results to a more satisfied set of employees.

If you aim to proceed to the next level, these are the qualities John Maxwell listed that you must exhibit first, with excellence.

Leadership Level 1: POSITION or RIGHTS

• Know your job description thoroughly.
• Be aware of the history of the organization.
• Relate the organization's history to the people of the organization (or be a team player)
• Accept responsibility.
• Do your job with consistent excellence.
• Do more than expected.
• Offer creative ideas for change and improvement.

Leadership is not just about position after all. It is a good thing if you already are in this level, but it is entirely a different thing to be considered as an effective leader. You really need to climb to the next level of leadership.

And we will be talking about that on the next post.

© 2014 Erickson Ibana

Image can be found at http://blog.lamercanti.com/2013/11/07/sell-an-idea-to-your-boss/

Second image can be found in John Maxwell's book "Developing the Leader Within You"

5 Segmented Levels of Leadership

In my previous post, we have learned that there are 4 distinctive Categories of Leadership. The main point that we could get from that is that everyone has equal opportunity to be a leader. The only needed ingredients are the desire to be one, exposure to leader models, and constant leadership training. The good news is that all three are attainable!

In connection with the former topic, I would like to clearly describe Leadership as how John Maxwell has defined it.

“Leadership is influence. That’s it. Nothing more; nothing less. My favorite leadership proverb is: He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.”

He further defined leadership as the “ability to get followers”, and it is not to “achieve a position.” With this straightforward definition of leadership, we now ask, “How can I be a great leader? What do I need to know to gain more followers? How can I make people trust me to become their leader?”

What we are going to discuss now are the Levels of Leadership. Leadership is just like in any building, if you wish to go to the upper floors, you need to access either the staircase, the escalator, or the elevator. In Leadership, if you wish to proceed to the upper “floors” of leadership, you must first know what “level” you are currently at. 

As one saying goes, 

“Knowledge is power.”

5 Levels of Leadership

  Level 1: Position

The entry level of leadership. Your title or your position is the only reason why you are being followed.

  Level 2: Permission

John Maxwell describes this as, “If level 1, Position, is the door to leadership, then level 2, Permission, is the foundation.”

  Level 3: Production

The Permission level is more of what is called as the “Relationship” level. Climbing up another level to the Production level, this is what is called as the “Results” level.

  Level 4: People Development

In this level, your ability to empower others, makes them loyal to you as their leader.

  Level 5: Personhood

The highest level of leadership where people follow you because of who you are as a person.

We will be dealing with each of the Levels above in more details in my next posts, starting from the entry level: Position.

In the meantime, we will be keeping these reminders in mind. These are straight from John Maxwell himself.

• The higher you go, the longer it takes.
• The higher you go, the higher the level of commitment.
• The higher you go, the easier it is to lead.
• The higher you go, the greater the growth.
• You never leave the base level.

I found this as true (based on my personal experience), that not all people respond in the same way to how I lead them. To some, I might be just a leader with the “position”. To some, I might be touching their lives already, the reason to make them follow me. I learned that the key to deal with different kinds of people is to take each person as a unique individual and deal with him in a personal way.

The last reminder John Maxwell was gave was to take other people, especially those with great influence, from within your group to the higher levels with you. This would help you create leaders as well, making your group an association of leaders helping each other out grow.

We will be talking about the first level of leadership next time.

For now, I hope you too would aim to get to the highest level of leadership!

© 2014 Erickson Ibana

First image can be found at http://www.amazon.com/The-Levels-Leadership-Maximize-Potential/dp/1599953633

Second image can be found in John Maxwell's book "Developing the Leader Within You"

4 Distinctive Categories of Leadership

“Leadership is developed, not discovered.” –John C. Maxwell

How would you define a Leader? Let me cite some great historical examples:

• Alexander the Great, whose empire stretched from Greece to modern-day Pakistan, sought to conquer even unto the ends of the world. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world. 1

• William Wallace, although vastly outnumbered fighting together with the Scottish army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, defeated the English professional army of 3,000 cavalry and 8,000 to 10,000 infantry. He was eventually called the “Guardian of Scotland”. 2

• Mahatma Gandhi, the freedom fighter of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India, who applied nonviolent civil disobedience which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. 3

• Jose Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and widely considered the greatest national hero of the Philippines, is believed to be the first Filipino revolutionary whose death is imputed entirely to his work as a writer. Through protest and civil disobedience, he was able to successfully destroy Spain's moral primacy to dominate. 4

These are mighty men who have rallied their fellow countrymen to attain either grandeur through means of pure genius strategic war techniques or independence and freedom through peaceful protest and civil disobedience. But, would you consider these people as leaders as well?

• A mother of whom a quick stare at her naughty child’s eyes would make him as calm as an angel

• A little child in his Boy Scout uniform guiding his fellow classmates in their annual field trip in various museums

• A traffic enforcer standing in the middle of the highway whose simple hand gestures could stop a mighty and enormous truck

• An extrovert friend who has the most say on what movies to watch during your get-together events

I guess you would agree with me too that they are leaders as well, on some degree that is.

John Maxwell states in his book “Developing the Leader within You”:

“Leadership is not an exclusive club for those who were “born with it”. The traits that are the raw materials of leadership can be acquired. Link them up with desire and nothing can keep you from becoming a leader.”

When I have first learned about this, my whole perspective changed. Initially, I would not consider the previous set of people as leaders (see above examples, the second set). My former reason why they should not be called as leaders because they are just performing menial and insignificant job compared to the great heroes of history. In short, in my view, if they are not born as leaders, they will never be leaders. My views shifted when John Maxwell described these Four Categories of Leadership. It’s quite interesting that anyone can be a leader, and the qualities can be acquired in time.


4 Distinctive Categories of Leadership

1. The Leading Leader

• Is born with leadership qualities (only some has this quality)
• Has seen leadership modelled throughout life (this quality is acquired)
• Has learned added leadership through training (this quality is acquired)
• Has self-discipline to become a great leader (this quality is acquired)

2. The Learned Leader

• Has seen leadership modelled throughout life (this quality is acquired)
• Has learned added leadership through training (this quality is acquired)
• Has self-discipline to become a great leader (this quality is acquired)

3. The Latent Leader

• Has just recently seen leadership modelled (this quality is acquired)
• Is learning to be a leader through training (this quality is acquired)
• Has self-discipline to become a good leader (this quality is acquired)

4. The Limited Leader

• Has little or no exposure to leaders (this quality can acquired)
• Has little or no exposure to leadership training (this quality can acquired)
• Has desire to become a leader (this quality can acquired)

While it is true that only a few are “born as a leader”, all can be a leader through these three aspects:

• Personally seeing leadership modelled through the lives of certain people
• Learning through leadership training
• Desire to be a leader

It all starts with your desire. Your desire, then, can bring forth the self-discipline to be a good leader. Through consistent learning through leadership training, you can acquire the traits to be a great one. Finally, witnessing great leaders around you will eventually guide you on your journey as a leader yourself.

There is more to be discussed, and I would love to share my thoughts again on my next post regarding the Levels of Leadership. May you “choose and desire” to be a leader today!

© 2013 Erickson Ibana


1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Rizal
Image can be found at http://theworldofalexanderthegreat.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/happy-birthday-alexander-the-great-2021-july-356-bc/

When The Motivation Is Low

Have you ever experienced this kind of scenario before:

Almost out of the sudden you've felt so pumped up when you've started a new idea, and then out of the sudden, you've felt like giving up and you've tossed away everything you've worked hard for because you've lost your motivation?

Or perhaps you were so energetic for a couple of months because you were so inspired by someone that every phrase that comes out of your mouth is so romantic, and then out of the sudden, it seems that all of your energies have hit rock bottom because you were being neglected by that same person?

Or something like this, you were so passionate to learn how to play the violin that you even bought one, but suddenly the drive to acquire the skills were slowly fading that being an excellent violinist was now just an imagination? 

Then, what should you do when the time comes when the motivation to continue and the drive to complete the good work you've started have become so low?

What should you do when the passion that you've once had has been slowly fading away?

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." ~Jim Ryun

 On an article titled: "Five Things You Need to Know About Effective Habit Change", Ian Newby-Clark, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada who studies habit change describes the practical ways to have an effective habit change.

1. Work on One Habit at a Time.
      If you work on changing more than one habit at a time you run a serious risk of overwhelming yourself and changing no habits at all.

One example is a person who wants to add more exercise hours daily, in spite of the fact that everyday he is already on a 12-hour work shift because of the work load! Contrary to his good motive (to be fit), this is not healthy at all because you are sacrificing your sleep hours.

2. Create a Plan and Write it Down.
     It’s in our nature to want to do better. We almost always want to do better. But wanting isn’t enough. You must make a plan. Write it down. Be as specific as possible.

It is not just enough to say to oneself, "I'm going to do better next time!" I think everyone wants that too, don't you think? What's critical here are the next steps one should make in order to be better.

If he wants to exercise regularly, and yet he wants to accomplish more at work, what are the steps he should make? Minimizing "Facebook" and idle times at work would mean he gets to finish his tasks quickly, and would mean he gets to go home early. How about his schedule? Will he go to the gym at a regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday? He needs to write these down.

3. Refine Your Plan.
     Now you need to refine your plan. In particular, you need to be realistic. Put your plan in a drawer for a day or so and come back to it with fresh eyes. Look at each sentence and ask yourself, “Really? I can do that?” Find someone who will give you an honest opinion. To avoid disappointment and discouragement, cast a critical eye on your plan and make sure that it is truly realistic.

Sometimes, when one plans, he plans for the "best-case scenario". I think one must review his plans and adapt them to the "real-case scenario".

If having a regular exercise on a weekend (rest day) is on his  plans, will he really accomplish it even if his friends would ask him  to go watch a movie together?

4. Make Mini-Plans. 
     You’ve worked on your plan and it is much improved. You’ve taken out all of the bits about you leaping tall buildings in a single bound and cooking a three course meal at the same time. But having a good plan isn’t enough. You have to make mini-plans (research psychologists call them ‘implementation intentions’).

Mini-plans are very helpful. For example, if one's regular exercise is on an M-W-F, he might have these in your mini-plans: "When the alarm clock goes off at 3:00 PM, I will shower immediately, get dressed quickly, have my meal, and must be at the gym before 4:30 PM. Then, have my workout for 1 and a half hours, shower quickly, and be at work before 8:00 PM." (That is, if the working schedule is on a graveyard one: starts at 8:00 PM and onwards...)

5. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!
     Habits are behaviors that we do over and over again. They become almost automatic. How much thought did you put into your last habitual behavior? Not much, right? It kind of happened just by itself. Now that you have your refined plan and you have your mini-plans, it is time to make your new habit almost automatic. And the only way to do it is by repeating and repeating. And repeating. That’s because psychologists have shown that repeating a behavior over and over again means that it happens automatically or almost automatically. So, the great thing about repeating the behavior is that, eventually, you won’t really have to make yourself repeat it. The new behavior will just kind of happen on its own.

There you go! Repeat what you have just started.

However, if #5 is still hard for you, I think there is somehow a problem with the way you are thinking right now. How come?

Let me explain it through this illustration:

• Do you THINK a regular exercise CAN really help you attain that "dream body", or you would just do it because you were being forced (peer pressure) by your workmates?
• Do you THINK accomplishing more at work CAN really make you an effective employee, or you were just completing your tasks for the sake of a "Completed Task" status to the point that the quality of your work were already compromised?

 I think I have heard this from John C. Maxwell:

When you change your THINKING, you change your BELIEFS...
When you change your BELIEFS, you change your EXPECTATIONS...
When you change your EXPECTATIONS, you change your ATTITUDE...
When you change your ATTITUDE, you change your ACTIONS...
When you change your ACTIONS, you change your HABITS...
When you change your HABITS, you change your CHARACTER...

 In order to have a GREAT HABIT, you must begin first from a GREAT way of THINKING!

Actually, the Bible has something to say about how one should think:

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." ~Romans 12:2

And there is this GOOD NEWS here - a GREAT way of THINKING will eventually develop into a GREAT CHARACTER!

Ask God to lead you before making your decisions today! Start with those tiny little decisions you make everyday.

As the author of "The Sherlock Holmes" Novel says:

"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important." ~Arthur Conan Doyle

Start today, my friend! And make it a habit...

Article Source: http://zenhabits.net/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-effective-habit-change/ 

© 2011 Erickson Ibana